Malware has a very interesting history.

In 1949, an American scientist of Hungarian origin, John von Neumann, wrote Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata. In 1971, this theory formed the basis of an experiment on the creation of the first self-replicating computer program. This program was called the Creeper system, where it gained access to the target computers via the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) and copied itself with the I'm the creeper, catch me if you can message.

An additional piece of interesting information about John von Neumann is that he later on went on to be a part of the Manhattan Project and helped in the design of atom bombs that ended the Second World War and directed the world towards Nuclearization.

While a nuclear war is a sure way to head towards mutual assured destruction (MAD), the cyber war of malware has just been escalating since it began. With no means of MAD or even attribution in a lot of cases, the attackers tend to get away with a lot of their activities.

Let's see how malware has evolved over the decades as represented by the following image: